Word: helene
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Helen tells me that she's worked at Charlie's for 38 years and that what keeps her going is her fondness of Harvard students. "I've gone to all the graduations," she boasts proudly. "The kids ask me to come...
Speaking with warmth and sincerity, Helen gives me a brief survey of the bar's history, one which includes supporting roles by Tommy Lee Jones '69, the Kennedys and Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. "He never made me feel small," she says of Moynihan, the former Harvard professor and one-time Charlie's regular. She makes the statement sound like a tribute of the highest order...
Soon we're discussing alcohol, and Helen tells me that Charlie's has never had an underage drinking problem. "Believe it or not, Harvard students never try to pull anything over on us," she affirms, and I have a strong desire to believe her. "It's like a family," she continues. "When you go into your grandmother's house, you show respect. That's what its like when you come to Charlie...
...theme of respect comes up again and again with Helen, and she layers her lengthy responses with adages and bits of advice. But when I suggest that Charlie's doesn't seem to attract as large crowds as do some of the square's other bars, her response gets right to the point. "We check everybody," is her simple answer. "The atmosphere is well-controlled here." I thank Helen and get up to leave, never having ordered my beer. Before I go, she becomes my first interviewee to give...
Soon a young waitress approaches our table and we order a round of beers. True to the words of Helen Metros, she asks respectfully and even apologetically for identification from each of us. And only when we provide government-issued cards which establish that we were alive for the last hundred days of the Ford presidency, or appear to do so, does she serves...